Opening statement…“Real proud of our defense and special teams. They really came to play and played with great passion and energy. Offensively we were totally out of sync the entire first half and never could – always were behind the chains because of – they're a good defense, but we also hurt ourselves quite a bit.

“We've got a lot to get cleaned up, but at the end of the day, we beat a good football team tonight, and we're excited to be going back 1 0. We're thankful to Chick fil A and all they do for college athletics and everybody associated with the bowl who does a phenomenal job with this kickoff classic. We're honored that we could represent our conference in it this year and come away with the win.”

On the offensive line and what the Rebels’ line needs to work on…“Well, you hate to say too much until you watch the film. We protected Bo pretty well until a couple times in the second half, but again, it’s hard to play when you’re behind the chains with so many penalties. They were definitely committed to stopping the run. They were going to make us throw to beat them, and they're pretty good up front and the movements, and we had some noise issues that I didn't prepare our team for, obviously. I've got to watch the film and see how we did. We were able to run it a little bit in the second half, and they did get some pressure on us at times for sure.”

On if what Boise State did on defense was what he was expecting…“No, it was quite a bit – a little different than kind of what we expected them to play, mostly four down, and they played a ton of three down and played some different stuff into the boundary that really gave us some problems early on.”

On the defense’s big hits, specifically Tony Conner…“Oh, Tony is a really good football player and he's got a great football IQ. To be a second year player, we're definitely glad we have him, and he played a solid game. Again, haven't watched the film. I know he got a great pick one time and a couple powers on that goal line that they ran he really spilled and did a good job with his assignment, but he's a really good football player.”

On losing Serderius Bryant, his teammates stepping up and his thoughts on the hit…“I never saw it, but I mean, the officials, surely, when they go review it they get it right on something like that. You know, we had one our first year and I don't think we had any last year. It's something we coach, and we've got to continue to coach. You cannot go high; you've got to lower your target. It really hurt us. I mean, without Denzel (Nkemdiche), he's sitting on the sideline, then he goes down, and then Keith (Lewis) cramps up, and I've got to take my hat off to a walk on, Tayler Polk played his guts out and made some plays for us. We were thin there at that time.”

On how he felt Bo Wallace rebounded after his first half interceptions…“Yeah, I'm looking forward to breaking the film down and seeing. Obviously, two of the three interceptions just were a bit unbelievable to us because they weren't even in his progression on the route, and he'll be the first to tell you that, and he knows that. So it was a bit amazing. He was a little out of sync, but I thought he really played well in the second half for sure.”

On the defense’s two stops inside the 5-yard line in the first half…“Yeah, those stops in the red zone. We talk about winning the critical areas, and those are third down, fourth down and red zone, and had our defense not won those critical areas tonight, we were fighting an uphill battle for sure, but those were big stops.”

On junior wide receiver Cody Core…“Cody, absolutely, coming out of spring ball, we had a guy in front of him, and Cody just went out and won it in fall camp, and that's the great thing about life, man, competition that you can thrive on and have an opportunity to compete, and he went and won it. He played really, really solid tonight. Again, without watching the film, but that was an explosive play that he made on the slant, and he made some other good plays early on. So, real happy for him. He's been through some tragedy, losing his mom, and going through that is difficult for a young man. I can only imagine. To see him succeed, really happy for him.”

On the offense…“Awful, hard to watch for 2.5 quarters, and then got in a decent rhythm there the last part of the game, found a way to score enough points to win, give them credit for that. Just we never could get any sync because we were behind the chains the whole time with I don't know how many penalties on offense, but too many for sure.”

On finding a rhythm offensively…“Yeah, at the end of the day players have to make plays for sure, and if we don't throw those picks in the first half we probably get some points somehow. They were committing so many people to the run, we had some things that – one of the picks I know we had a guy running wide open down the field, and if we don't get those, it might be a different game, but we did. We didn't make the plays at that time, and I've got to figure out why, if I'm not coaching it well enough or our coaches aren't coaching it well enough, and we certainly have to eliminate the penalties.”

On the fourth quarter touchdown to sophomore wide receiver Laquon Treadwell…“The two fades? It was the only two times all night I believe we had a pass called and caught them in man coverage, and that's what we like to do if we catch them, but the rest of the night they really did a great job of either giving the corner help with dropping the end out into the boundary underneath it and letting the corner play soft or being in some two high stuff. We caught them in man or at least single high. I don't know if it was man. They're basically the same when it comes to a receiver and a corner, but we caught them in single high, and we like our chances with Laquon.”

On senior quarterback Bo Wallace's first half and what he did better in the second half…“Well, the first half it was he's our guy, but he did some things that he will tell you, two of them were not even part of his progression. They were totally not a part of the route, and I don't know if he's pressing too hard with so much that's how many times has the question been asked about how is Bo Wallace and what do you expect of him? He wants to do so well and have such a great year, and maybe he just had and we were always behind the chains, and I'm sure he felt that we've got to press a little bit. So, he obviously didn't play his best. I thought he settled in the second half and played pretty good.”

On senior defensive back Senquez Golson’s performance…“Yeah, our defense played physical and hit and ran to the ball, and Senquez is a big part of our defense. He's a guy who we feel like we can put on the field and have a chance at winning a lot of one on ones. I'm real proud of him more so just how he's matured and handled the transition with our core values and things. He had a phenomenal camp, is just trying to lead and do things right, which is a bit of a change for him. He's always been a good player, now I'm real proud of everything he's developing into, but very important to us as a field corner.”

Ole Miss Players

#1, Laquon Treadwell, WROn fourth quarter offense…“We went on a silent snap count and that kind of slowed them down. (Bo Wallace) was able to go through his reads without it being third and long every time.

“I was really just letting the game come to me. We know we have a talented team and we would start playing better.”

#94, Will Gleeson, POn his first football game…“It was my first game of American football ever, so I didn't really know what to expect.”

#5, Robert Nkemdiche, DTOn playing Boise State…“Boise State is like an SEC team in that they bring it on every play and we couldn't relax.”

On playing in the Georgia Dome…“I've played here so many times through high school, but it was a lot different this time coming back with a lot of friends and family in the stands. I had so many text messages waiting for me after the game, with friends saying they saw me on TV.”

#88, Cody Core, WR“Scoring my first touchdown in the Georgia Dome for the Chick-fil-A Kickoff was awesome.”

Boise State Head Coach Bryan Harsin

On the missed opportunities in the first half…“Yeah, well, I think you start with the turnovers on the offensive side. We'll start with that. You know, you've got four turnovers there, it's hard. You lose those opportunities in drives. But we had some chances for some big plays, and that's what you've got to do. You're playing a good defense, and you want to move the ball down the field, change field position. You saw that in the second half that they were able to do it. You get some of those big chunks, it allows you to create some tempo with what you're doing. You stay ahead of the change there and then you get some big plays. We've got to go back and look at it, and the opportunities are there. It's cashing in on those opportunities. We have guys to do that. We just have to do it. We've got to go out there and do it. That's the bottom line.”

On the play of senior quarterback Grant Hedrick…“Yeah, there were some things in there, like a lot of guys on the team on both sides, it's the first game, there's some jitters, there's some mistakes that are made. He wasn't perfect, but I thought he played well. He settled in there in the second half. He made some throws, checked the ball down, had some good decisions. A couple of those throws might have been ill advised, a couple of those throws were going for big plays. That's one thing with our quarterbacks is we want those guys to go in there and have a mindset of making that play, and there were some good plays made on the ball, too. We'll go back and look at it and clean those things up, but Grant overall, without watching the tape, he competed, played hard. I liked his demeanor on the sideline. It's a matter of improving what we're doing in that area.”

On if he’s still searching for more offensive options…“Well, if you base it off your statistics, yeah. I don't necessarily feel that way. I felt we had some guys in there who we were trying to get the ball to. That's just sometimes the way it works. Those guys being good players, and you're talking about check downs and things like that for Jay (Ajayi), those guys get themselves in position to have opportunities to get the ball, and we're trying to get the ball to some other guys, but ultimately until we do it, yeah, we had to establish somebody else other than Matt (Miller), other than Shane (Williams-Rhodes), other than Jay who can go out there and make some plays, and we didn't do that yet. We've got to keep working on it.”

On the Boise State defense…“Yeah, I mean, those guys, I saw the D line – I'll say one thing, I heard a lot about the other D line. Our D line played well tonight. I give those guys a lot of credit. They played well. They played hard. Our linebackers – defense looked good. We gave up some big plays. You go back, and that's what football is about, we gave up some big plays and it changes the game and the score changes and it looked completely different than what it really is. We have to eliminate that, but at the same time it's a team game. Both sides have to complement each other, and our defense for three quarters is doing everything they can to put us in position to go score, and we need to take advantage of that opportunity. At some point the other side has to complement what one side is doing, and I thought they played well. I'd like to still see them finish regardless of what happens with anybody else. You want to see them finish and play the whole four quarters like that.”

On the preparation of his team coming into Thursday night’s game…“Yeah, I think from all that, all those unnecessary penalties, I don't think we had many of those. There's some holding penalties and some things on defense that I've got to go back and watch, but yeah, it was clean. The operation was clean. You know, we had guys in position that we hoped we'd have, and like I said before, we need to take advantage of those opportunities. Our guys take a lot of pride in their preparation. It showed up, and we need to continue that. That shouldn't change. But we need to find ways to keep moving the ball, especially from the offensive side where we can take advantage of going out there and having good operation but making those drives end. A couple of those drives, we get down there on the goal line and we don't finish it, that's difficult. Our team didn't deflate, and that's one thing about these guys. They came back, they did it again, and that was one thing for me you still wonder as you get into a game exactly what everybody is going to do and how they're going to operate, and our team didn't deflate there and those guys kept battling. But that changes it. We're down there inside the 5 yard line, we get two scores, momentum changes and that's what the game is about.”

On his offense’s physicality…“Well yeah, I think that's a battle inside. We tried to run it in there and tried to be physical, and they were physical back. I mean, it was a battle. I don't know where it broke down or what happened. I couldn't say that right now. But obviously we don't get it in and we're trying to run the ball, then you would assume that somehow, some way they out physicaled us in that situation there. We've got to go back and obviously find a way to get it in. You're on the 5 yard line, you worked all that way to get down there. We've got to be able to punch it in. We just weren't good enough tonight to get that done.”

On junior cornerback Donte Deayon senior defensive tackle Tyler Horn…“Yeah, Tyler wasn't able to go back in, and I don't know the extent of that yet. Donte kind of dinged up a little bit, back and forth, trying to get himself going, had Bryan (Douglas) in there, had (Jonathan) Moxey in there, both those guys. They played. Both those guys have done a good job, so give them an opportunity to go out there and let them play a little bit. I don't know if he could have gone back in or not. I don't think there was anything saying he couldn't at that point, but you had a couple other guys that you were feeling pretty good about, so a guy gets dinged up, let them go play.”

On if he leaves the game feeling encouraged or discouraged…“Well, disappointed because we didn't win. That's what we came here to do. We came here to win, bottom line. We're not going to sit there and make excuses for not going out there and winning the ballgame. That's not what we do. We'll find ways to get better. I'm proud of our team. I'm extremely proud of our coaches, how they operated. The things that we emphasized showed up, and we weren't good enough to get it done tonight, bottom line. We'll go back and we'll go back to work, and the thing about it is whether we had won this game or lost this game, we needed to go back to work. It's never good enough, and we're going to find ways to prepare ourselves when we play at home next week, we've got Colorado State which is a good football team, and we've got to find ways from now until we show up and play those guys on Saturday to get better, and that doesn't change whether we win or lose, that's just how we do it.”

On if he saw improvement from his offensive line as the game progressed…“Yeah, I don't know even early on they were overwhelmed because we ran a couple plays now that I thought our guys as far as just shape and tempo and all that, you didn't see our guys laying on the field. That's one thing about our team tonight that I saw. I didn't see anybody laying on the field. Nobody is out there gassed, nobody is out there holding their hamstring or anything like that like they're cramped up. Our guys played. And so that tells me a lot about the type of shape we're in. We came into this game, we were fresh, came into this game with the mentality, and ultimately it comes down to execution. As far as how our guys played and played up front, they did a heck of a job against a good D line.”

Boise State Players

#20, Tanner Vallejo, LBOn playing in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game“I'm here, I'm glad to be here.”

On finishing a game…“We need to watch film to get missed assignments. We need to learn how to finish a game.”

On being a defensive player…“We love to be on the field, but our job is to get off the field.”

#27, Jay Ajayi, RB“We had great energy in the first three quarters but lost energy in the fourth.”

On the fourth quarter…“In the fourth we were playing great all game, we could've stayed more focused. If our offense is going to succeed, we are going to have to do our job and play hard. Anything I can do to help this team, that's my mindset.”

On the offense…“With interceptions, I trust Grant (Hedrick), he’s going to learn from film. I trust him.”

#9, Grant Hedrick, QB“We just got to have a short memory. You’re not going to win a lot of games throwing four picks. We turned the ball over four times but still kept the game close most of the time. Obviously, we'd like a better start but there were some good decisions out there.”

#4, Darian Thompson, S“We have to keep the same energy, have to keep it together, keep them from scoring.”

On his interception…“It was a great play by me I guess. I was just reading the quarterback.”

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